Railroad history of Portland, Maine

Introduction

For 125 years, between the arrival of the first train in 1842 and 1967 when the Grand Trunk abandoned its service to Montreal on the St. Lawrence & Atlantic, there had been a continuous presence of passenger trains in Maine's largest city. Most of the railroad activity in Portland revolved around agricultural goods bound for export and import freight from Europe, while passenger activities were mostly confined to intercity travel from Portland to Boston, Montreal, Nova Scotia, and points West. It could be said that local passengers were carried on long-distance trains as something of an afterthought. In Portland's past, train schedules were designed with intercity travel rather than daily commuting in mind.

Brief History

The first railroad to reach Portland was the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth (PS&P), whose joint operation with Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts began in 1842. The PS&P's main terminal in Portland was on Commercial Street south of Union Street. Six passenger trains per day connected Portland with East Boston. The Boston & Maine B&M arrived in 1843 (via PS&P to Portland), followed by the Atlantic & St. Lawrence (A&SL) in 1848 (with trains from India Street in Portland to Yarmouth and ultimately to Montreal in 1859) . Services to Auburn, Lewiston, and Waterville began in 1849 on lines of the original Maine Central (MEC) system that are now the (GRS) main line to Lewiston, Waterville and Bangor. The route to Brunswick opened in 1847 as a portion of the Kennebec & Portland railroad which was subsequently subsumed by the MEC and GRS.

Railroad Stations of Portland

Portland once boasted four passenger rail stations: Commercial Street and India Street (both on the water front), Preble Street on the north side, and Union Station to the west. In the early days, trains from the South on the PS&P terminated at Commercial Street south of Union Street while Grand Trunk trains from the north terminated on the waterfront at India Street. In 1873, when the B&M completed their line to Portland, their northern terminal on Saint John Street was named Portland Union Station. With the growth of the B&M, the Commercial Street terminal lost its prominence in the 1870s, and was completely abandoned in 1894. The Preble Street terminal was constructed to serve the Portland & Rochester (P&R), which eventually became the Worcester, Nashua, and Portland division of the Boston & Maine. It was abandoned in 1900, after which P&R trains were routed to Union Station. By the time the Grand Trunk opened a new terminal on its India Street site in 1903, Portland was down to only two passenger stations: the B&M/MEC Portland Union Station on Saint John’s Street reconstructed in 1888, and the Grand Trunk Terminal on the waterfront at India Street. The current Portland Terminal of the Amtrak Downeaster service was a brand-new facility constructed specifically for the Downeaster on the former Mountain Division of the Maine Central Railroad.

Railroad Services in the Golden Era

During the heyday of Passenger rail in the 1920s, a variety of companies provided passenger rail services to Portland.

• Portland had two terminals: Union Station and the Grand Trunk’s India Street Terminal. All passenger trains, except the two daily Grand Trunk trains to Montreal, operated in and out of Union Station.
• In the westbound direction, Portland had four “banks” of transfers: one in the early morning, one centered around noon, one at 5pm, and one late at night. Union Station was relatively quiet in between those times.
• Schedules were generally designed to have trains leave Portland in the morning and arrive in the evening. The only notable exceptions were overnight services (MEC #8), the B&M evening connecting services to Boston (B&M #176, 250), and one single commuter-like train in the Westbound direction (MEC #138/#44).
• In some cases, traveling to Lewiston required a change of train at Brunswick.
• The afternoon commuter-like trains in the eastbound direction resulted from heavy eastbound connecting traffic from the Boston & Maine. The fact that these trains fell within the commuter timeslot appears accidental.
• There is evidence in the schedule that the Grand Trunk deliberately discouraged commuter travel. GT #83 does not allow terminations in Lewiston, even though it is likely that the equipment moving from Lewiston to Lewiston Junction to meet #83 would have needed to run back empty to Lewiston after its tour of duty.

How the Lines Worked

The service between Portland and Lewiston Junction (site of the Lewiston-Auburn airport) ran along the Atlantic & St. Lawrence mainline, which was constructed to Yarmouth in July 1848, then extended to Danville Junction in November 1848, and reached Lewiston Junction in 1849. During the initial construction activity, an impressive wooden viaduct with a steel swing span was constructed to bridge Back Cove in Portland and India Street on the Portland Peninsula. The bridge operated until 1984 when it was damaged by fire.

The Grand Trunk alignment from Yarmouth Junction to Lewiston Junction was initially constructed as a single-track mainline with passing sidings and was never double tracked. As the links were constructed all the way to Montreal, the Grand Trunk obtained a lease on the A&SL and operated that line until 1923 when bankruptcy forced a takeover by the Canadian National. In 1984, following the bridge fire, the line was truncated at East Deering. Freight customers south of Back Cove were served through the Commercial Street connection with Guilford Rail System on the south side. In 1989, the line was purchased by a private owner and renamed the St. Lawrence & Atlantic (SLA). Today it is part of the Genesee & Wyoming group of short line railroads.

Today, the remaining section of the Grand Trunk alignment south of the burned Back Cove Bridge is used by the Maine Narrow Gauge Railway and also survives as a pedestrian footpath/linear park.

Yarmouth Junction is where the SLA route crosses at a diamond the old Kennebec & Portland (K&P) mainline to Brunswick, known today as Guilford Rail System’s “Brunswick Branch”. The section of K&P in question was constructed in 1847 and was the earliest section of the K&P, reaching Bath in 1849.

During the consolidation period in the 1870s, the K&P was acquired by the Maine Central. Because of the higher population along the coast, the K&P route (known as the MEC “Lower Road”) once carried many express passenger trains, including the Flying Yankee to Bangor.

In 1981, the Maine Central was acquired by Guilford Rail System, which continues to operate limited freight services eastward to Brunswick.

Demise of the Portland Passenger Rail Service

Passenger service on the P&R was completely abandoned in 1932. By 1954, the Maine Central was operating scheduled bus services between Lewiston and Portland in place of some trains, but for the trains that did run, the trip time was reduced from about 90 minutes in the 1920s to as low as 55 minutes. In 1954, Grand Trunk continued to operate one train daily to Portland and Lewiston from Montreal.

As passenger service declined, passenger facilities were deactivated. India Street lost its prominent tower in 1948, and the station itself was demolished in 1966. Union Station in Portland was razed in 1961, but its demolition spurred the beginning of Portland’s historic preservation movement.

In the twilight years of railroad-operated rail passenger service, all passenger service on the Maine Central (Portland-Bangor) ceased in 1960. The Lewiston service via the Maine Central was discontinued in the mid-1950s. The Boston & Maine ended its service between Boston and Portland in 1965 and, in 1967, the Grand Trunk discontinued its once-weekly, summer-only Sunday service to and from Montreal, ending the last scheduled passenger service to Portland and Lewiston.

Current Development

Renewed Railroad Service to Portland

Starting in 1990, the State of Maine began active planning for the restoration of passenger rail service between Portland and Boston. After more than a decade of perseverance, the Amtrak Downeaster service began operating with four daily round trips to North Station in December 2001. In October 2007, following construction of additional passing tracks, the schedule was increased to five round trips on most days.

In Portland, the Downeaster terminates at an intermodal station with a large parking lot west of the Portland Peninsula on GRS’s Mountain Division.

In June of 1987, the State of Maine purchased the 56 mile Rockland Branch between Brunswick and Rockland and the Calais Branch from the Maine Central Railroad. Guilford serves few customers in Brunswick. East of Brunswick, the state recently refurbished the Rockland Branch to FRA Class 3 standards. The Maine Eastern railroad was recently named to operate the railway with seasonal passenger excursions and limited freight traffic interchanging with Guilford in Brunswick.

In 1993, a seasonal winter service between East Deering and Bethel was to carry skiers to and from Bethel on the Grand Trunk alignment. However, due to unfavorable economics and that planned connecting passenger rail service to Boston had not materialized to support the ski train, the service was discontinued in 1997 after three years of operations.

References

• Johnson, Ron (undated). Maine Central R.R. Mountain Division. 470 Railroad Club. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

• The Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba (Also Time-Tables of Railroads in Central America). February 1926 edition. Edited by E.S. Allen and A.J. Burns. The National Railway Publication Company, Publishers and Proprietors. New York. 1926. Reprinted by Cape Ann Train Company, Manchester, Massachusetts. 2001.

• The Rail Lines of Northern New England by Robert M. Lindsell. Branch Line Press Pepperell, Massachusetts. 2000.

43°39′07″N 70°16′48″W